2006/11/23, Henri Sivonen:
The latest WA 1.0 draft covers this as follows: "If the alternate keyword is used with the type attribute set to the value application/rss+xml or the value application/atom+xml, then the user agent must treat the link as it would if it had the feed keyword specified as well." http://whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#alternate0
This conforts me in thinking that the application/atom+xml media type should be updated to add a "type" parameter with values "feed" and "entry". There would be no ambiguity between these two links: <link rel="alternate" href="application/atom+xml;type=feed" title="This is a feed, which happens to be an 'alternate' of the current page" /> <link rel="alternate" href="application/atom+xml;type=entry" title="This is a standalone entry" /> I expect aggregators to allow me to subscribe to feeds (subscribe in the sense or "watch for new –or updated– entries) or individual entries (subscribe in the sense of "watch for updates"). With rel="alternate" and an RSS or Atom media type, those aggregators could show a "subscribe to this page" button. With an RSS or Atom media type and another 'rel', they could a "subscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]" button. For example, with these two links: <link rel="contents" type="text/html" href="/index.html" /> <link rel="contents" type="application/atom+xml" href="/feed.atom" /> a browser could show "Go to Table of Contents" and "Subscribe to Table of Contents" buttons.
"The feed keyword indicates that the referenced document is a syndication feed.
"Being a syndication feed" is expressed by the media type, there's no need for a 'rel' value. The only reason for such a 'rel' is to replace the "contents" value in the example above: <link rel="feed" type="text/html" href="/index.html" /> <link rel="feed" type="application/atom+xml" href="/feed.atom" /> in "blog-like" use-cases where an HTML page serves the same purpose as a syndication feed, just in an 'alternate' format. -- Thomas Broyer
